| Graphics on Labels |
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| Mail
merge - Inserting logos /graphics on business cards and mailing labels |
| Note: |
If you have access to Microsoft Publisher, then this is a
much better tool for producing labels with graphics than Microsoft Word. |
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Graphics
including watermarks and wrapped images can be a tad complicated to insert
on Word labels, but, with Word
2000-2007, it is possible. With earlier versions you may
need to insert the image in a text box, and forego the option to insert
a watermark.
As far as Word is concerned, business cards
and postcards are essentially mailing
labels, so whether you use the envelope/label wizard and/or mail merge to
labels, the problem and its solution are essentially the same.
Use
the envelope/label wizard to create a new document based on your card/label
format. This will insert a table on the page that
reflects the layout of the labels. |
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Note: |
With some
graphics by default Word 2002/3 will use the drawing canvas. This can be
turned off from tools > options > general - see below.
Word 2000 did not use the drawing canvas. |
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For this exercise I will use a WordArt text as a watermark, but the
image could be any type of image that you can insert into a Word
document. A watermark will be set behind the label text, but a wrapped
option could be used if preferred.
Prior to Word 2002, WordArt could
not be inserted in-line.
WordArt may be inserted from the button on the drawing
toolbar (as illustrated) or from the Insert menu. |
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Format the WordArt to set the image behind text. When so
set, you will only be able to select it using the white arrow pointer on
the drawing toolbar. |
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Set the options to display the image at a high level of
transparency according to taste - here 90% - and set the line colour
setting to 'No Line': |
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Select the
image and
press ALT+F3 to save as an autotext entry. Call it 'Watermark'
(The name is
not important, as long as it is unique).
For a single page of labels, you can
select the cell containing the image and copy the cell to the clipboard
(Ctrl+C). Select the table as below: |
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Click 'Paste' (CTRL+V) to copy the cell content
into all the other cells. |
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Note: |
Unfortunately the above is not completely reliable and you
may find it difficult to reproduce the image in each of the cells. The
image tends to have the bad habit of jumping out of the cell. If that
should occur, then all is not lost.
Having saved the graphic as an
autotext entry, you can adopt the following procedure to ensure that the
image is correctly placed in each label.
Alternatively, the
Macro at the end of this page will duplicate the content
of the first cell into all the other cells |
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Cancel the document as
you won't need it any more.
Run the
envelope/label wizard again.
When you get to the window in
which you insert the address information, type the
autotext name - here watermark - and press F3 to insert
the image into the label window. The window may not display the graphic,
but you will see something has occurred. Select 'New Document' to
produce a page of labels each containing the image - as in the previous
illustration. |
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For mail merge or labels containing text
as well as the image, a slight variation on the above technique is
required.
When you get to the window in which you insert the address information,
insert that address information, Press CTRL+F9 and between the curly
brackets type AUTOTEXT
Watermark - thus {AUTOTEXT
Watermark}. Add the rest of your address (or
merge fields if merging).
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Now either create a new document
from the label wizard or merge to a new document. If the
images do not
display select all CTRL+A then F9 to update the fields, and you should
get your text and image in each cell. |
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or with mail merge
(note these addresses were taken from
an old list and may no longer be valid for those companies shown.)
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| Word 2007 |
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Word 2007 is essentially similar, but the access to the
dialogs is a little different and there are a few
more quirks to complicate matters further. |
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Click OK to insert the graphic in the cell.
Then set the wrap to 'behind text' and format the fill and line settings
etc to give the appearance you wish to achieve. |
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With the
watermark, formatted as required, selected Press ALT+F3 to activate the
Building Blocks dialog |
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Note: |
The watermark autotext entry should then behave as it
does when using the older Word versions, however the inserted autotext
entry will not retain its wrap option, but will be inserted according to
the setting in Word Options. It is probably simpler to leave your
preference and format the inserted graphic in the merge document before
adding the merge fields and propagating the labels. |
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I would not recommend the use of the autotext entry in
the labels wizard as shown above for the older Word versions. Use the
macro at the end of this page instead. However, it can be coaxed to
work: |
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Mail merge too will require the fields to be updated
before merging to a new document. |
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Macro to duplicate the content of a label
(graphics and text) to all the other labels |
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The macro employs the propagate
function, from the mail merge toolbar, available by converting the
document type to a mailing label merge document and was inspired by a
suggestion made by
Microsoft Office MVP Beth Melton in a newsgroup thread about
graphics on labels. The method can be used without the aid of the macro,
but requires several steps as indicated in the macro comments.
The macro will work with all recent Word versions. |
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Sub DuplicateLabels()
Dim sCodes
As Boolean
'Store the current
display of field codes
sCodes = ActiveWindow.View.ShowFieldCodes
'Change the document
type to mailing label
ActiveDocument.MailMerge.MainDocumentType = _
wdMailingLabels
'propagate the labels
WordBasic.MailMergePropagateLabel
'display the field
codes so they can be removed
ActiveWindow.View.ShowFieldCodes = True
'search for and remove
the {next} fields
'added by the
propagation and which are not required
With Selection.Find
.ClearFormatting
.Replacement.ClearFormatting
.Text = "^d NEXT"
.Replacement.Text = ""
.Forward =
True
.Wrap = wdFindContinue
.Format =
False
.MatchCase =
False
.MatchWholeWord =
False
.MatchWildcards =
False
.MatchSoundsLike =
False
.MatchAllWordForms =
False
.Execute replace:=wdReplaceAll
End With
'revert the document
type to a normal document
ActiveDocument.MailMerge.MainDocumentType = _
wdNotAMergeDocument
'restore the original view of field codes
ActiveWindow.View.ShowFieldCodes =
sCodes
End Sub
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